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Thursday, April 14, 2016

Mom is slipping. It's sad, but that's the harsh reality of Alzheimer's tearing away who you are and who you were. I'm with Mom every day, but I can still see the changes taking place on near daily basis. Now she's too the point that she may not eat unless I tell her it's time to eat.

Today, I was in the kitchen when Mom came out of the bathroom, comb in hand, she's always packing around a comb and sometimes more than one. Anyway, once she saw me a smile crossed her face--I think at times she believes she's here alone and is happy to see another human--and she asked, "is there a lady?"

After a moment of silence she took her hand, her comb hand, and started swinging it around the kitchen. I had a pretty good idea she was asking if Paula were home, but she can't remember Paula's name either. It took several attempts for Mom to grasp, but eventually I got the point across that Paula was at work and would be home tonight. She thought, then stammered out a reply of "OK, I'll wait".

It's difficult but I held back the laughter and asked Mom what she needed. She stuttered a stammered a bit more, then exasperated she gave up by saying "I don't know".

At this point, I dodged any further discussion by pointing Mom toward her coffee on the table. Again this made her happy as a grin crept across her face and she was off to the dining room leaving me free to cook her breakfast.

So speaking of hair, I'm sure Mom was looking for Paula earlier to complain about her Albert Einstein style of hair. She complains about it nearly every day and has almost every day for the last year.

Mom's hair was getting pretty long and unruly so the last time Kel was down we had her give Mom a much shorter bob cut. The last time Kel cut Mom's hair she threw a fit about the style for weeks. Kel gave her the cut on a Saturday night. Things were going well and Mom appeared to be pleased, that is until Tuesday morning rolled around.

On Tuesday morning Mom came out of the bathroom shuffling quickly along. Seeing this I knew she was on a mission. I had already started her cooking breakfast, but instead of her normal routine of walking over to the slider and making a weather comment, she made a beeline straight toward me. When she was close enough she turned around, grabbed the back of her hair with one hand and pointed at the back head with her comb hand--I told you she almost always has a comb in hand--then turned around and glared at me. Seeing her glaring at me I asked her, "what?"

Instead of using words, she wheeled around and repeated the entire process again. When she turned around I asked if there was something wrong with her hair. Immediately she gave me an angry scowl and told me that someone must have came into her room and cut her hair while she was sleeping.

I tried to explain that it was cut three days earlier by her grand daughter Kelsey, but all that did was piss her off and off she stormed, well more like shuffled quickly, back to her room.

Once her breakfast was on the table I went to her room to inform her breakfast was on the table. By this time she'd forgotten all about the hair and was happy breakfast was ready.

I try to find the humor in every situation like this, it's how I keep myself going, but man oh man do I feel for her. The only saving grace for Mom is she can't remember any of this, plus she can't even remember she can't remember.